This Boise-area Airbnb has over 1.8 million views on TikTok. You can stay in ‘magical’ bus
Look closely in Caldwell, and you’ll find something that’s a little out of place: a green, 33-foot-long British double-decker bus. According to the owners, it’s the only converted bus of its kind available for stays through Airbnb.
The bus belongs to Angie and Dustin Mori, a pair of born-and-raised Idahoans who live in Caldwell with their six children and a foster child, a coop full of chickens and their specialty converted buses.
The other bus is a 30-foot-long classic red British double-decker, called the Double Decker Espresso. The pair have served coffee at events around the Treasure Valley for about three and a half years.
But their green bus, visible just off Interstate 84, has a different purpose. A fairly new addition, it’s called the Double Decker Hideaway, and the Mori family has been renting it out for vacations on Airbnb since October.
The bus is fully refurbished with a kitchen, lounge area, toilet and shower, and bedroom. A video of the Airbnb went viral on TikTok earlier this month. As of Friday, the TikTok video had over 1.8 million views.
“I don’t even do TikTok. I have a daughter that does, so she’s like, ‘Mom, look at this video!’ ” Angie told the Idaho Statesman. “The people that made that video were a young couple, and we didn’t even know they were doing that. And they left and didn’t say a word.”
The video has caused an explosion in the popularity of the Airbnb rental, which is available for $102 a night. There are only two nights left unbooked for April and most nights are booked through July. The bus has been reserved for about 85% of the available nights since October, Angie said.
A night on a British bus
Neither Angie nor Dustin have even been to Britain.
Their love for double-decker buses began about four years ago when Dustin was looking for a fun family business. He’d always loved roasting coffee, he said, and thought about running a commercial coffee roaster. When looking into that venture, he came across the idea of a double-decker coffee bus online.
“I told my wife, ‘We need to find a double-decker bus and turn it into a coffee shop in this area,’ ” Dustin said. “It would be pretty fun, and it will stand out quite a bit.”
The pair purchased an old British bus that used to drive the streets of Bradford, England, from a friend who owns US Bus Utah. When that idea proved a significant success, they decided to purchase another bus and turn that one into an Airbnb.
“Almost everybody that came in (to the coffee shop), the first thing they would say is, ‘Oh, I’d turn this into a tiny home,’ ” Dustin said. “So the guy who sold us the first bus, he keeps sending us pictures of other buses. So finally we’re like: ‘OK, let’s do it. Let’s buy another bus and turn it into a tiny home.’ ”
The Moris paid $30,000 for each of their buses. The Double Decker Hideaway cost an extra $20,000 to renovate, they said, with most of the renovations being hand-built by Dustin.
The bus looks nondescript on the exterior — situated against the backdrop of an Idaho field and a natural rock wall. It has a table and chairs sitting out front with a small fire pit, grill and tiki torches.
But step inside and through the small wooden door that separates the driver’s seat from the rest of the bus, and you’ll find yourself in what Angie and Dustin describe as an “English pub” setting.
Dustin built a long wooden kitchen space by hand, fit with a fridge, sink, toaster oven and storage space. The back end of the bus features three comfy leather seats that, aside from new green leather coverings, are original to the bus when it arrived.
The rest of the chairs were ripped out to make space for furniture. Angie and Dustin’s children found several British coins stuck between the seats that had made the journey across the Atlantic Ocean.
The upstairs is accessed by a windy, narrow staircase typical of British buses, and opens onto a more delicate atmosphere.
“We wanted to keep it kind of light-feeling upstairs, and almost a little more romantic, softer,” Angie said. “And then a little more of your pub-feel downstairs with the darker, richer tones.”
A curved wall built by Dustin separates the bathroom from the rest of the upstairs, and slanted floors are evidence of the precise work he had to do to renovate the bus.
“Everything in here is custom because everything’s curved or not square or not straight,” Dustin said.
Public reaction
The bus has a 4.94-star rating out of five on Airbnb from 71 reviews. Reviews describe the bus in several ways, from “whimsical and so magical” to “super cute.”
Many comments the Moris received from friends and guests went back to one thing:
“Overwhelmingly, the comment we got was: ‘We’re not quite sure what we expected. But this is more,’ ” Angie said.
Since the bus went viral on TikTok, they’ve seen an increase in Boise residents looking for a “staycation” close to home. Occupancy is now about half and half between those coming from in state and out of state. Before that, it was more favored by out-of-state vacationers, Angie said.
The bus has WiFi but no TV, instead offering a box full of board games for entertainment. Angie and Dustin said they were tempted to just keep the bus for themselves but wanted to offer it to the public as a way for people to make memories.
It’s also fully operational, with the pair considering renting it out for events like weddings in the future.
“For us, we really wanted people to be able to connect with other people,” Angie said. “We have a guestbook downstairs where we encourage people to tell us what they’re doing or why, and I love getting to read it after they’re gone to know what they thought and what their special occasion was.
“So that’s the total fun part about it. Just having something unique to share with people.”
Tell us what you want to know:
This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 1:21 PM with the headline "This Boise-area Airbnb has over 1.8 million views on TikTok. You can stay in ‘magical’ bus."
